


einnhverr

by Rigil_Kentauris



Series: fara heil ok vel [5]
Category: Fire Emblem Heroes
Genre: Defiance, Epistolary, Gen, Hope, Meandering, Reminiscing, copious worldbuilding, faith and rejection and vice versa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 11:40:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18249104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rigil_Kentauris/pseuds/Rigil_Kentauris
Summary: I look at the writing on these walls and ruins and every ancient text I've ever forced myself to cling to in desperation, and today I do not see arrogance.I see *us*.





	einnhverr

**Author's Note:**

> uh so i wrote this in one shot directly into ao3 so. when it comes to 'is this plot tidy' grain meet salt  
> that being said i am in this moment happy with it so
> 
> ANYHOW. todays norse word of the day is _einnhverr_ from 'einnhvern dag' meaning one day (adj pron), though einn hverr itself means each, each one.

Hello Alfonse, Sharena, 

I haven't anything of particular importance or weight to say today. I miss you both, though, and I was thinking of you...

Pardon me if I ramble. I find myself...happy, today. There is no reason for it. I've recently departed from a temple ruin on the himinioðurik peninsula. It was...well, Alfonse, you would have liked it. Preserved it was not. But the temple carvings were legible, if not in pieces. A new headache to join the old in companionship. Suffice to say, there was very little information there.

But I did find a story.

An old one.

Do you remember, Sharena? Perhaps you won't, you were barely able to walk. I...don't remember much of my early childhood, and I don't know what I can expect you to recall, but you had just come back from sneaking off to the stables. And you'd tried to ride that little pony, do you remember? The white one, with little red spots so bright they were almost orange. You'd been fascinated with it, you named it Sauce, or Breadcrumbs, or something dinner-related like that. I forget. To return to the subject at hand. You'd tried to ride it, and fell, and cut your knee open and the entire castle was in an uproar. Rightly so, in my opinion, but then, you never thought of yourself as a person who needed any degree of protecting. I envy you that, if I am being quite honest.

I am wavering, my apologies.

The story was a local one, something cut over older rote descriptions of even older, apparently unimportant, Askran practices. Himiniothur has always been such an isolated part of Askr. It will be important for both of you to travel here, I think. No one else of the royals ever has. Do you know, linguistically it's fascinating, do you know they understand my Emblian expletives? Ah, not that...hm. We'll pretend I didn't say that, yes? I'm loathe to remove the pristine image you both absolutely _must_ have of me.

Besides. It was a very frustrating day.

The story. Yes. A young woman from the local collective set out one day to the Tower of Heaven, to ask the gods for grace that she might invite the whole of the world to dine with her, and thus, secure her collective the goodwill of all. She fights many opponents, and so on and so forth according to the regular pattern of myths, and eventually makes it to the Tower, as one does. And the gods are shocked, you see. They've not seen a person in quite some time. She asks them for their blessing, demands really, Himiniothurik legends have no shortage of people standing on equal footing to the gods, and attitude withstanding the gods grant her her desire with a detached point of benign confusion about the entire situation. She returns to her collective and things go delightfully, everyone is getting along, so on, so forth, it looks to be a happy ending until the gods show up, again. You see, the woman interrupted their tea time back at the tower, and they, benignly of course, decided the best course of action was to go and visit her, given that seemed to be in line with what she wanted. The gods promptly proceed to wreak havok on the delicate balance in the region, and despite everything the woman does, conflict returns and her peace falls apart. The story ends with a warning to stay far from the Tower and far from the arrogance that comes with assuming anything can be divinely granted to you that you could not earn yourself. Rather bleak.

So, naturally, my first action was to head to the Tower.

Arrogance may as well be damned, seeing as I am already.

As you perhaps can imagine, there was nothing there. The landscape is still destroyed from contact with the first tempest, and I wonder what it is my sister saw in this place before she called down the power to tear it apart. I wonder if either of _you_ ever saw it before it was torn asunder. There are unfathomably deep, perfectly smooth bowls cut from the land, with trickles of dust trembling over the edges where one can imagine water usually flows when it rains in the mornings. The few knobbly trees are torn up and strewn here and there across the horizon. They are already weathered grey. The wind doesn't seem to work properly here anymore. And of course the flowers have yet to come back, it’s only blunt, greygreen grass. There aren't even any pilgrims camping on the way anymore.

I walked all around the tower, poking at the stones and archaic wards, looking to see if anyone's attempt to cut writing into it had ever succeed, but to no avail. Then I sat down and looked over it all, looked over what it is we've done to this place.

And I thought about the story.

How people must have seen things not exactly like this but still like this happen before, long long ago. Maybe even again, before that.

How it never seems to stop. How terrifying it must have seemed to those who needed to immortalize the lesson in stone over the words of their ancestors. How badly it must have cut that they couldn't find the words to simply say it and had to find other, roundabout ways of talking about something else entirely in order to get the point across. How fear became stories became warnings ignored. And fear again.

Well, I realize.

I am not them.

I will not _be_ them.

I will not be my past, no matter how long the chain goes back, because I have that story, yes, but I have another.

I write to you now at the base of the temple. And I remember an escapade. One princess, smothering under the careless over-attentiveness of people who wanted nothing more than to see her never come to harm. Who didn't understand that this meant 'never come to _change',_ too. And I remember the story of a brother who used to be too cleverly, innocently, mischievous for his own good. And their friend, who knew better, who _always_ knew better but couldn't help himself because he had hope. The princess with the will, the prince with the way, and me, who was always there to tell you both that our worst of plans would work, even when I was always frightened that they wouldn't. Three stupid, brilliant children, who snuck out past the watchful eyes of every person in the world and ran to the stables and made the least secure pile of ladders and boxes I've still ever seen to date, and got the princess on the horse, and then got ourselves on our own, and broke out to stumble ineptly around in the fields outside the castle under the blazingly perfect spring equinox as if in defiance of the gods themselves. And I look back at us, and I look at the writing on the walls, all the walls across every temple and ruin and ancient text of caution I've forced myself to cling to in desperation, and today I do not see arrogance.

I see hope.

And if it is arrogant to hope in the face of an eternity of failure to change, then so be it.

I believe.

I believe in _us._

You, my princess, with the grace and determination to unite every force that exists, and you, my prince, with the intelligence and resilience to conquer every challenge that comes your way.

And me.

Me, equipped only with this my flagging hope.

But I promise you.

I _swear_ to you now.

With that arrogant hope, I will damn every god who dares stand in our way.

**Author's Note:**

> its about time you talked to sharena you punk  
> although youre not sending any of these i suppose


End file.
